In-house training: If you have a group of 12 or more staff we can assist you in bringing DDP training to your workplace or community. Email us.

Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy/ Practice (DDP) is an intervention model developed by Dan Hughes, Clinical Psychologist (U.S.A.). DDP is family-based and is focused on facilitating the child’s readiness and ability to establish a secure attachment with his/her caregivers. It is called Dyadic Developmental Practice both to focus attention on the importance of reciprocity in parenting, caregiving and therapy, and also to draw attention to the fact that abuse, neglect and trauma can seriously impact on the child’s developmental age and stage. This intervention is theoretically based on the models of attachment theory and intersubjectivity, and is consistent with the needs of children and young people who have experienced developmental trauma. It is an approach that:

• Integrates the areas of neurobiology of trauma, early child development and attachment theory, to produce a therapeutic and parenting approach that assists professionals to understand and effectively support children with trauma- attachment problems, and their families. 
• Communicates playfulness, acceptance, curiosity and empathy (PACE) in order to help the child regulate their feelings (often fear, shame and anger) associated with past experiences and to create together new meanings to be integrated into the child’s life story (autobiographical narrative). 
• Recognises the vital role which adoptive parents, foster carers and residential workers play in the recovery of traumatised, attachment-resistant children. 
• Provides a set of principles that can support networks; inform and enrich parenting; and can support the child outside of the home eg in residential settings and at school

Participants are referred to the Healing Relational Trauma with Attachment Focused Interventions which underpins this training.

It is an approach which limits shame, promotes compassion and brings a sense of mutual support, strength and resilience.

Dan Hughes, DDP Founder

DDP Level One Training

This is an introductory 28-hour training course relevant to professionals and therapists who have experience in communicating with and working therapeutically with children and young people and their families. It is focused on families and residential care homes when children have experienced past developmental trauma and have associated attachment difficulties.

By the end of this course participants will understand:

• The impact of secure developmental attachment on neurological, affective, cognitive, and behavioural development
• How developmental trauma (abuse and neglect) create insecure and disorganised attachment patterns which impede normal development
• Principles of psychotherapy, effective communication and parenting that facilitate the development of attachment security
• Specific strategies of parenting and communication that facilitate the development of a secure attachment and help children integrate past trauma and abusive experiences
• How the caregiver’s attachment history and attachment patterns can be important factors when providing care for children who have experienced developmental trauma.

In this four-day training, principles and interventions are presented through formal discussion, case examples, videotape of therapy sessions, role-play, and hand-outs.

A MAXIMUM of 24  participants is permitted. 

Audience: This training is suitable for professionals who have experience in working with children and families, or parents or caregivers, whose children have experienced developmental trauma and show attachment and relationship difficulties with their primary caregivers. This could be with adoptive parents, foster parents, kinship carers, or caregivers, such as in residential homes. 

Mental Health Professionals: All mental health professionals including, but not limited to Clinical Counsellors, Psychologists, Psychotherapists, Psychiatrists, Social Workers, Nurses, Occupational Therapists, Mental Health Workers, Family Therapists, Child Protection and Disability Workers, Guidance Officers, Speech and Language Therapists, Residential Care Workers and Foster Support Workers, and all other mental health professionals looking to support young people and their parents/carers.